


Gifts

by imsfire



Series: Fragments from the multiverse [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Feels, Gen, Handicrafts, Hoth setting, gift-giving, love and affection, shy people, wookiee life day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 01:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: It's Life Day and Jyn has made a gift for Cassian...





	Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Good Yule and a succesful rebellion to one and all!

Everyone’s heard of Kashyyyk’s famous Life Day, even if not all the personnel at Echo Base have celebrated it before, and there are a number of Wookiees among the forces on base.  So when the nearest equivalent date comes around, it’s no surprise when they create a towering “tree” of recycled durasteel panels and plasteel structural rods, and coloured flimsi-paper.  Once the Tree is in place, word gets around pretty fast, and something in the atmosphere warms up, for all the measurable temperature is still 20 below.

Gifts, love, a celebration of community and shared history, of family, loyalty and friendship.  The celebrating Wookiees make it very clear that they are delighted for anyone and everyone to join in.

Gifts.  Love.  Celebration.  Family.

It had taken Jyn longer than she’d hoped to wobble her way through the piece of stick-knitting she’s been making for Cassian, so it ends up being not a random _I-was-thinking-of-you_ gift but a formal Life Day one.  It’s awkward, far more embarrassing when it comes to it than she had imagined it would be.  Her mental picture was of a casual aside, a friendly pat on the arm, and handing him the folded scarf before moving quickly on to other things; of downplaying the gesture before there’s any chance it can become uncomfortable or leave her feeling rebuffed.  Instead she’s standing in front of him, feeling painfully formal, among a whole gathering in the mess hall.

At least the knitting is okay.  It took some false starts and practice runs but in the end she’s made a good, warm piece of fabric with no dropped stitches and a shape that is even all the way down.

It’s the first time she’s given anyone a gift since she was a child, and judging by his expression, it’s the first time he’s received one since then. 

Cassian blushes.  She never thought that Cassian could blush.  Calm, collected, in-control Cassian. He’s gone really pink, and he’s smiling so hard his cheeks are like two dimpled fruit. “Jyn – it’s amazing.  Thank you.”

“I made myself a matching one,” she says hastily.  Downplay, downplay, steer away from any potential for embarrassment. “There was spare wool, so…  But mine was a bit more bodgey.”

Hers was atrocious, truth to tell,  But he’ll only ever see it wrapped round her neck, so he doesn’t need to know how crooked it is, how many stitches she dropped and cobbled together, how unequal the stripes came out because she kept forgetting to count her rows.

He’s wrapping the scarf round his neck already. “I love it.  Jyn, I _love_ it.  **Thank you**.”

And then he digs in his jacket pocket and hands her something, and his face goes even more of a deep blush-red. “I – I made you this.”

A long loop of leather thongs and recycled wire, twisted into fine links and threaded at intervals with beads.  Some of them regular glass and plasteen, some made from recycled programming chips.  He unfastens the clasp; a reused back-pack clip.  Holds it out to her. “It’s a belt – I was trying to copy the style I remember from when I was a kid but it doesn’t really work without the right kind of trims so it’s kinda weird-looking, but –“

“It’s – you made me this?” Her mouth doesn’t want to close and her forehead feels so tight, she’s suddenly uncomfortably aware it may be a frown.  Cassian’s face has fallen, she wants to hurt her own brows for knotting together like this but she’s so stunned that her muscles are going into her own personal version of the fight/flight response.  Freeze/glower; she knows what she’s doing, she has to stop it.  A gift, he made her a gift too. 

“I knew you wouldn’t want jewellery,” he says.  His voice going flat. “I thought maybe – well, anyway, you can use it to fasten something together, if you don’t like it, if you don’t need a belt –“

Jyn gasps for air and flattens her angry-face off frantically. “No!  It’s beautiful!  It’s – it’s too beautiful.  It’s too fine for me, I’ll just wreck it.”

_Like my stupid face wrecks moments like this.  I hate myself when I can’t even show how –_

_\- how happy_

_\- how grateful_

_\- how awed I am_

_\- that you should care for me_

_\- and_

“Will you laugh at me if I say nothing is too beautiful for you?” Cassian says cautiously.

“Nothing is too beautiful for _you_ ,” she retorts. “This is – you’re – ah, Cassian.  _Thank you_.”

He’s looking into her eyes and it dawns on her as the glare/flee/freeze begins to fade that he’s probably read all of this before in her eyes.  Many, many times.  He knows her as well as anyone in the galaxy.  He’s still here.  His smile is recovering, it’s crooked but gentle and full of affection, and he says “Would you like to try it on?  I think I got the size about right but I can adjust it if not.” He passes it round her middle, over her pants and jacket, and clips the fastener closed.  And “It’s okay if you don’t like it –“

Jyn is still gaping, looking down at this gleaming, pretty thing, but she shakes her head furiously at that. “I love it.  It’s so beautiful.  I just – no-one gave me anything since –“

“Yeah.  Me neither.  I love my scarf, Jyn, it’s so warm.”

He’s been holding her at the waist, careful hands spanning where the belt is clipped on now, fingers on the curve of her hips, thumbs brushing the front of her clothes.  He touches the place on the belt where a silvery durasteel loop holds several carabiners.  “You can hang things on it, here, my mother always did that, a comm and a clasp-knife and her keys, I remember them swinging.”  His face is so eager, and she loves him so much, loves seeing him hopeful and smiling, who was once so shut and dark. “It was a traditional thing, for – for a man to give his - but – if you’re not sure if you like it –“

Jyn boosts herself up on her toes and silences him with a kiss. “I love it.  I never had anything so fine.  It’s beautiful and useful.  And traditional.  Thank you.”

“Happy Life Day.”

And she knows it’s illogical to be so deeply touched, and so shaken, at being given a gift and a loving word, when she’s carefully planned and worked to do the exact same thing for him.  Like trust, perhaps, this has to go both ways; the act of receiving, the strange vulnerability of that.  Letting him see how much she needs him, how much, how very much. “Happy Life Day, my love, my dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a kind of sequel to "Recycling", in which Jyn began knitting...


End file.
